Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/56529
Financial Times Global Alliance Partners We would like to acknowledge the global perspective that the schools listed below have given to their students for the coming academic year. In these extraordinary times, reliableworldwide news and intelligence are essential to the learning process.Today's successful global executives are forewarned and forearmed with the information that the FTprovides.These schools are putting their students in the same league.Thank you! • Chicago Booth School of Business • Minnesota State University, Mankato • Villanova University • Babson College • Drexel University • Thunderbird School of Global Management • United States Naval War College resource_centers/research/default.asp. Scholars are also tak- ing a closer look at the impact of research, myself included. Alex Wilson and I recently collaborated on the article. "An analysis of the environment and competitive dynamics of management research," which is forthcoming in The Journal of Management Development. These types of studies make it clear that the Internet has made it much simpler for scholars around the world to col- laborate, leading to globally focused research that is widely distributed through electronic outlets. But even as manage- ment research becomes more international, it continues to face a series of related challenges: remaining accessible, col- laborative, and useful to business. I think one answer to all these challenges is for manage- ment research to focus more on cross-disciplinary topics of great importance to the world today. These might include sustainability, climate change, healthcare, security and ter- rorism, entrepreneurship, global accounting, and global risk management. Topics like these lend themselves to focused analytical inquiry that demands rigor—but they also have immediate relevance to the real world. But it's not enough for business schools to produce valu- able research. They also must find ways to disseminate it more widely and in formats that are more comprehensible to the average person seeking knowledge. When Warwick Business School recently provided its advisory board with key papers from its leading researchers, I was surprised to find that the most common complaint was that the papers were hard to read and filled with too much academic jargon. Our advisory board members also believed the school should reformat the papers and publish abridged information on our Web site and in venues such as the Financial Times and The Economist. In addition to disseminating research more widely, I believe we must consider new ways to measure its impact. We need to do more than simply count how many times an article has been cited in scholarly journals. We need to understand how it is being utilized in practical, hands-on applications. Much to Be Done Even while the association fine-tunes its efforts in globaliza- tion and research, we can't overlook other defining initia- tives. AACSB will continue to provide leadership in areas such as ethics, peace through commerce, and assurance of learning. And, of course, we will continue to promote what is and always will be our core mission: accreditation. As AACSB expands its efforts to support quality manage- ment education in every nation, we will bring with us our focus on balanced research, our understanding of assurance of learning techniques, and our commitment to thought leadership. In short, we will bring with us our unswerving dedication to quality management education. ■ z Howard Thomas is dean of the Warwick Business School in the U.K. and the 2009–2010 board chair of AACSB International. BizEd SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2009 55